Two Weeks
by thelaststop
Summary: Percy Jackson has gone and blown himself up to save Annabeth. Follow Annabeth through the next two weeks of her life as she attempts to come to terms with his passing. Set concurrent with the chapter "I Take a Permanent Vacation" from Battle of the Labyrinth.


**A/N: So this is the second story I wrote. I got a review from boxofpandora16 on the original story that gave me a kick in the butt to make this story better, to put some meat on its bones. It took me a while to get around to it, but here we are. A little over 600 words later and I'm proud of what it looks like now. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it.**

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><p>Did I really just do that?<p>

I just kissed Percy Jackson. On the lips.

I have my Yankees hat on invisibly trying to escape Mount St. Helens while Percy fights off an army of Telekhines, and all I could think of was the salty ocean taste I have on my lips.

Ugh, why do I have to be so stubborn! Why couldn't I tell him how I feel about him. Now he is going to be all noble and get himself killed so I can live.

Ugh, I hate you Percy Jackson! Why can't things be simpler?

I kissed Percy Jackson. On the lips.

He had better make it out of there alive. I'll kill him if he doesn't.

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><p>Shortly after I make my way back to the Labyrinth, I feel the ground shake beneath my feat and hear a deafening explosion. My heart stops of a moment when the passage I just came through collapses behind me. 'Oh Percy, please be okay' I think to myself as I follow the mechanical spider back to Hephaestus' forge.<p>

I begin to sob uncontrollably because I just know Seaweed Brain did something really stupid like cause a volcanic eruption with him still in the magma chamber. Oh Gods, please be okay Percy you sweet idiot.

After about a half hour of slowly stumbling through the Labyrinth, the spider and I reach a large set of iron doors that the spider opens for me. I tentatively step back into Hephaestus' forge. I really do not want to see anyone right now unless it is Percy or they can tell me Percy is alright. I do like Hephaestus, but everyone knows he is not good with people. Let alone people who are emotionally unstable.

I find him standing over a worktable looking at a set of blueprints. My hushed crying alerts him to my presence. He looks me right in the eye and says, "I'm sorry about your friend Jackson."

I lose all strength in my body, my knees buckle, and I'm laying in front of Hephaestus in a fetal position maniacally sobbing.

My Seaweed Brain was dead.

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><p>The first week was hard. I still held out hope he was alive. I don't know why, but I just knew that he would not leave me like this. He traveled across the country to save me from Luke and Atlas. A little thing like being blown up was not going to stop him from returning to me. Right?<p>

Hephaestus treated me well, but I could tell he kept looking at me like if I were a machine he could fix me. Unfortunately for him, I was a teenage girl who lost her best friend. My constant crying probably did not help matters with him. However, I was thankful for him just being there and at least pretending that he cared. Hey, he is a god, looking after a broken mere mortal was by definition below him.

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><p>A week after the eruption, Hephaestus finally got tired of my moping and sent me home to Camp Half-Blood. I materialized inside the Big House. My sudden appearance started Chiron who happened to be walking through the room.<p>

I saw him and the tears started flowing again. He came over to me and pulled me into a warm, fatherly embrace.

"There, there, child. You're home now." He said to me.

I looked into his eyes, my voice quivering, "Pec- Percy's dead."

He looked taken aback and his eyes got sad. The sadness of millennia of receiving news that the heroes he had trained died, "What of Grover and Tyson?"

"Lost in the Labyrinth," I said weakly. "I failed."

I started crying harder. I was getting tired of doing that. I used to be a proud daughter of Athena, never showing any emotional weakness. Not anymore.

Chiron had Malcolm come and take me to our cabin once I settled down enough to not make a huge scene on the way. That did not work out so well.

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><p>Three more days pass. He still had not come back. I lose more and more hope that Percy is still alive daily.<p>

I have not left my cabin since Malcolm walked me out of the Big House, saw Cabin 3, fell down, cried hysterically, and finally passed out.

All of my siblings except for Malcolm stare at me with sad eyes. He brought me food everyday, that I barely pecked at, and told me when I'm ready to talk he would be there. I was no where near ready to talk about it. My unchecked emotions made me feel more like a daughter of Aphrodite than Athena. I hugged him and cried into his shoulder for a good while.

He was the best brother I could ever ask for.

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><p>Two more days pass.<p>

I finally decided to step outside my cabin for dinner, I made a conscious effort to not look up at Percy's cabin. I was not ready to face the truth that he was dead just yet. There was still a tiny hope in me that he survived and was having a difficult time coming up with cab fare to get get back. Yeah.

When I step into the dining pavilion, a deathly silence falls across all the campers. I choose not to acknowledge it and just grab a plate. I make a small dinner of a cheeseburger with a blue bun and blue french fries appear.

I walk over to the hearth, scrape off a large portion into the fire, nod my head, and say, "Please accept this offering as my condolences, Lord Poseidon."

The burnt food sends a smell wafting in my direction. Ocean spray and salt water.

I drop my plate and begin crying again. Percy's scent was just too much for me to handle. Malcolm runs up to me and gently takes me back to our cabin.

Our grey eyes meet, "Annabeth, everyone is worried about you."

"I know," I sniffle out.

"I don't know what happened down in the labyrinth, but please stop beating yourself up. I'm here if you need me," he says pulling me into another embrace.

"Than- Thanks Malcolm," I weakly say, "I failed everyone. My first quest as the leader and I lose everyone. I let Grover and Tyson go off on their own. I lost him." I barely get the last three words out before I am back to uncontrollably sobbing.

Malcolm hugs me again and lets me get it all out of my system.

"I'm a failure Malc."

"Don't ever say that!" He says firmly, "If there is only one thing and only one thing I know about you, Annabeth Chase, it's that you are the strongest person I know and you do not fail when you have your mind set on something."

I give a weak smile to my brother. He lets me out of his comforting embrace and I lay back on my bed. My eyes close as soon as my head hits my fluffy Pegasus down pillow.

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><p>Two more days pass. It has now been two weeks. Two weeks with no indication from anyone or anything that Percy or Tyson and Grover are still alive.<p>

Chiron told me that we need to move on. Today we were going to burn Percy's death shroud. Unknown to me at the time, my cabin had made his shroud since he had no one in his to make it. It was beautiful and simplistic,just like Percy.

I can not help but think what a cruel trick this life is. When I like someone they turn evil or die. We are in the middle of a war with Luke, who I had a huge crush on years ago, and now Percy who I was noticing stronger and stronger feelings toward. Why do the Fates hate me so much? So much for a simple life.

Late afternoon came around and we all gather in the amphitheater for the burning ceremony. Chiron made some kind of announcement about assuming he is dead and our prayers not being answered, but honestly my mind was elsewhere. Mount St. Helen's two weeks ago to be exact. My lips on his for that briefest of moments to be perfectly honest.

I am awoken from my daydream when Chiron asks me to do the final honors. Hesitantly, I grab Percy's long green silk burial cloth, embroidered with a trident, and set it upon the flames.

I barely start to say, "He was probably the bravest friend I've ever had. He…" I stop immediately when I looked at the back of the amphitheater and see something I had wished for. All the blood surged into my cheeks and my face felt like it was on fire, "He's right there!"

I stood in stunned disbelief for a minute as the other campers and Chiron swarmed around him.

I regained my composure and made my way to him. Shoving aside other campers until I got to him.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" I grab him up into a hug that probably shattered a couple of his bones. I would have kissed him again right there if we were not surrounded by campers. Too many questions I did not feel like answering would be raised and the scene it would make, oh Gods.

It struck me suddenly that I was making a huge scene as it was, so I pushed him away forcefully.

"I - we thought you were dead Seaweed Brain!"

After a few minutes Chiron grabbed both of us and trotted up to the big house to talk about Percy's whereabouts and what to do about my quest.

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><p>I was so very happy I got my Seaweed Brain back until he told me and Chiron about his past two weeks, but didn't give much details about the island he was on. I knew instantly where he had been when he told us he landed on an island. I'm pretty sure Chiron knew too, but he did not press Percy.<p>

Stranded on an island for two weeks. Calypso, that was the only thing that made sense. My heart sank again, but there was this little spark in the back of my mind that told me, "he came back."


End file.
